Jonathan's Space Report No. 352 1998 Mar 11 Cambridge, MA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shuttle and Mir --------------- Talgat Musabaev and Nikolai Budarin entered the Kvant-2 module on Mar 3 and depressurized the inner (PNO) and outer (ShSO) airlock in preparation for a spacewalk. However, they were unable to open the outer hatch, which was repaired by the previous crew. The airlock compartment was eventually repressurized; duration in vacuum is not yet available. Depress was probably earlier than 0130 UTC; repress was around 0245 UTC. AXAF ---- NASA has named Eileen Collins to command Shuttle mission STS-93 which will deploy the AXAF observatory. STS-93 will be the first space mission to be commanded by a woman (not counting Vostok-6, the solo flight by Tereshkova). Eileen Collins, who has made two flights as pilot, will be STS-93 commander. This may not seem like a big deal to some of my readers from around the world, but in a country where the first woman president still seems quite a way off I think it's a significant thing for kids to see a woman in a prominent command role. The USSR at one point had plans for Svetlana Savitskaya to command a Soyuz mission, but the flight was cancelled; that crew would have been all-female, one suspects because the old guys in charge of the Soyuz program at that time couldn't cope with the idea of a woman giving male cosmonauts orders. Fortunately, NASA has gotten its act together a little better than that for some years now, with the women mission specialists being selected for missions on an equal basis. Kathy Sullivan was named Payload Commander (in charge of the payload component of a mission) of the 1992 flight of STS-45 and almost half of the Payload Commander slots have been filled by women. The mission Commander slot, however, is a role with much greater prestige and real authority. Collins was picked as the first female pilot astronaut in 1990, making her the first to be eligible for this command slot, and her selection for this mission is consistent with the careers of the rest of her astronaut class. Steve Hawley, the former astronomer who deployed Hubble, is also on the crew, together with pilot Jeff Ashby and mission specialists Cady Coleman and Michel Tognini. Launch of STS-93 is now scheduled for Dec 3. Work on preparing the payload for launch continues, with a recent successful end-to-end test flowing data through the spacecraft and flight instruments to the control center. I've started an STS-93 web page at http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/axaf/sts93.html Recent Launches --------------- No launches yet this month. Lunar Prospector continues in a 100 km lunar polar orbit. On Mar 5 NASA announced that LP has confirmed the presence of ice in the lunar soil in the polar regions, greatly increasing the possibilities for lunar colonization. The five Iridium satellites launched on Feb 18 began raising their orbits to operational altitude in early March. Most of the Iridium constellation is in a 100.4 min, 774 x 780 km x 86.4 deg operational orbit to which the satellites maneuver after launch into a much lower parking orbit. However, some satellites have been placed in a reserve orbit 10-15 km lower than the operational one. One satellite was temporarily placed in a higher 785 x 790 km orbit. Of the 51 Iridium satellites launched to date, two failed and remained in parking orbit; six are currently in the reserve orbit; four were still raising their orbits from parking to operational as of March 9; and the remaining 39 satellites are in the operational orbit. Details of orbital changes for individual satellites are as follows: 1997 Jul: SV021 failed, stayed in parking orbit. 1997 Sep 6: SV011 to reserve orbit since this date 1997 Sep 11: SV004 to reserve orbit for 19 days, now operational 1997 Sep: SV027 failed, stayed in parking orbit 1997 Oct: SV036 delayed 2 weeks in move from parking orbit 1997 Nov 22: SV040 deployed to reserve orbit until Jan 27 1997 Nov 23: SV038 deployed to reserve orbit, remains there 1997 Dec 11: SV020 to high reserve for 9 days, now operational 1997 Dec 20: SV018 to reserve orbit since this date 1997 Dec 23: SV042 to reserve orbit since this date 1997 Dec 27: SV026 to reserve orbit for 1 month, now operational 1998 Jan 11: SV005 to reserve orbit since this date 1998 Feb 3: SV048 to reserve orbit since this date 1998 Feb 21: SV024 drifting higher, probably will move to reserve Table of Recent Launches ------------------------ Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL. DES. Jan 7 0228 Lunar Prospector Athena-2 Canaveral SLC46 Probe 01A Jan 10 0032 Skynet 4D Delta 7925 Canaveral SLC17B Comsat 02A Jan 22 1256 'Ofeq-4 Shaviyt Palmachim Imaging F01 Jan 23 0248 Endeavour Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 03A Jan 29 1633 Soyuz TM-27 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 04A Jan 29 1837 CAPRICORN Atlas IIA Canaveral SLC36A Comsat? 05A Feb 4 2329 Brasilsat B3 ) Ariane 44LP Kourou ELA2 Comsat 06A Inmarsat 3 F5 ) Comsat 06B Feb 10 1320 GFO ) Taurus Vandenberg 576E Altimeter 07A Orbcomm G1 ) Comsat 07B Orbcomm G2 ) Comsat 07C Celestis-02 ) Burial 07D Feb 14 1434 Globalstar FM1 ) Comsat 08A Globalstar FM2 ) Delta 7420 Canaveral SLC17A Comsat 08B Globalstar FM3 ) Comsat 08C Globalstar FM4 ) Comsat 08D Feb 17 1030? Kosmos-2349 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC31? Recon 09A Feb 18 1358 Iridium 50 ) Delta 7920 Vandenberg SLC2 Comsat 10A Iridium 52 ) Comsat 10C Iridium 53 ) Comsat 10D Iridium 54 ) Comsat 10E Iridium 56 ) Comsat 10B Feb 21 0755 Kakehashi H-II Tanegashima Y Comsat 11A Feb 26 0707 SNOE ) Pegasus XL Vandenberg Science 12A Teledesic 1 ) Comsat 12B Feb 27 2238 Hot Bird 4 Ariane 42P Kourou ELA2 Comsat 13A Feb 28 0021 Intelsat 806 Atlas IIAS Canaveral SLC36B Comsat 14A Current Shuttle Processing Status __________________________________ Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due OV-102 Columbia OPF Bay 3 STS-90 Apr 16 OV-103 Discovery OPF Bay 2 STS-91 May 28 OV-104 Atlantis Palmdale OMDP OV-105 Endeavour OPF Bay 1 STS-88 Sep 17? MLP/SRB/ET/OV stacks MLP1/RSRM66 VAB Bay 1 STS-91 MLP2/RSRM65/ET VAB Bay 3 STS-90 MLP3/ .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 | | Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | | | Astrophysics | | | 60 Garden St, MS6 | | | Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@urania.harvard.edu | | USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu | | | | JSR: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html | | Back issues: ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news/news.* | '-------------------------------------------------------------------------'